Yesterday, I received an email from the Democratic National Committee informing me that they had a "Cyber Monday surprise" just for me.
How nice. All I had to do was click on the link to store.democrats.org. After the jump, readers will see the store's apparent "best sellers," raising a quite obvious question: Does anyone think the press would ignore analogous items on sale in a GOP store?
Apparently, "hate" is okay, as long as it's directed at Tea Party sympathizers.
I have two comments on the "Like a Boss" Obama T-Shirts. The first is that it has obvious authoritarian overtones. The second is that it may also play off of an obscene 2-minute video by the same name to which I cannnot link in good conscience.
The press is constantly on the lookout for even the slightest hint of impolitic behavior by conservatives and Republicans; anything found is blown completely out of proportion.
An Orange County, California GOP central committee member got national attention and was censured after emailing an off-color joke about the President. Ohio's Democratic Party Chairman was barely noticed, even locally, when he spoke of "Tea Party f___s," and refused to apologize. Sarah Palin got grief for "targeting" leftists for defeat in elections, as if there was something violent about the idea. And in the past few days, a GOP congressional aide has quit after enduring obsessive press attention for daring to question the highly questionable attire of Obama's daughters at an official function.
But when Democrats openly sell hate and authoritarianism, and those products become their alleged best sellers, more than likely meaning that they've been on sale for months? Crickets. (I found nothing even remotely similar at what appears to be the official GOP Store.)
More substantively, to name just two of many more recent examples:
- When a Democratic candidate called his female gubernatorial opponent a whore, it was ignored for days until New Media forced out grudging coverage.
- When Jonathan Gruber was shown to have called American voters stupid on multiple occasions while openly admitting that Obamacare was passed through legislative subterfuge, the press avoided noting his existence for days — and when it did, tried to pretend that what he had said and done was no big deal.
That Democrats can openly sell hate and Dear Leader-admiring authoritarianism at their online store is thus a small indicator of a much, much larger problem.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
